The March To Tunis The North African War 1940-1943 I.Mediterranean Front II.A Year of Battle III.The End in Africa Hardcover – January 1, 1965

An embedded journalist's account of the Desert War. Decades before writing his epic Duology 'Blue Nile' and 'White Nile', Moorehead was a war correspondent following the British army in the Western Desert. He joined Wavell's little army in 1940 as it fought down a massively superior (numerically - if in little else) Italian force, having a front-row seat as the British broke the Italian army and conquered half of Lybia.The writing is truly excellent - other reviewers have sung the praise of Moorehead's reporting style more eloquently than I possibly can.What I found a little disappointing was the absence from the book of Moorehead's reporting outside the Western Desert and Lybia - I had understood that he also was a war correspondent during the British conquest of Italian East Africa as well as in the Middle East. These episodes would have been just as interesting as the fighting in the desert. There is an obvious gap in Moorehead's vivid description of the desert war, from very early in 1941 to the resumption of the British offensive (now against a mainly German adversary) at the end of 1941 which could have been filled with his reporting elsewhere.The above minor gripe aside, this is an awesome book. Reading about the utterly confused fighting around Sidi Rezegh in late 1941 with brave little 'Honey' tanks charging at the Germans as if they were 1800s style cavalry, or about the stunning luxury the Italians managed to create for their troops in the desert, or about Savoia (-Marchetti) bombers diving out of rainclouds (there is a surprising amount of rain and mud in this book - it does rain in the desert) - can't get enough of it.